Embodiments of the invention described in this specification relate generally to methods of creating survey, simulation, and other content, and more particularly, to tree-diagram design interface processes for creating surveys, simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems.
Surveys, educational simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) that are responsive to the choices of individual students are widely recognized to facilitate differentiated and deep learning, yet they are very technically demanding and time-intensive to create, which has limited the scope of their creation and use.
Very few products or systems exist to design surveys, simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems, and those that do exist either require significant technical expertise, or they use a non-intuitive design interface. The existing systems used to create surveys, simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems are simply too complex and/or time-intensive for a person with average computer skills to use. As a result many people are largely excluded from the process of creating surveys, simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems. In an educational context, the consequence of this is that existing surveys, simulations, and intelligent tutoring systems are often not as relevant to an educator's goals as what they could create for themselves.
Therefore, what is needed is a way to use a highly intuitive tree-diagram design interface that can be nearly universally understood with minimal instruction. Moreover, my invention utilizes an easily understood 1:1 ratio of inputs in the design interface to elements in the actual survey, simulation, or intelligent tutoring systems, whereby each input in the design phase has a clear and identical output in the survey, simulation, or intelligent tutoring systems.